Originally Posted by dlundblad
Originally Posted by DriveHard
see attached
Our house came with a programmable thermostat. Not sure how I feel about it..
I've always been of the impression that the constant change in settings makes the furnace work that much harder thus consuming more energy than just leaving it alone. Sleeping better in cooler temperatures is one thing, but I'm unsure of actual energy savings if one say turns it down when they leave for the day.
Perhaps you could shed some light?
Here is the "light" *L*
Without question, turning down the thermostat as much as you can does save energy.
I understand your thinking (and others) that you then use just as much energy warming the home up again.
Its much more complicated then what most think. Yes of course your furnace does have to use more energy to warm up the home again but here is the part that people miss and this is why, its a fact, you save significant energy by turning down the heat, its just fact, world wide.
Here is one reason that I never knew either and its all easy to research on the internet. Again, indisputable.
The warmer a house is, the more heat that escapes into the atmosphere as the pressure for the heat to escape is higher.
The warmer the air in your home, increases pressure to escape to the outside, through any means possible as the greater the difference between outside and inside increases.
Look at it this way, hot air balloon. Crank up that flame to heat the air in the balloon, the hotter it gets, the higher the balloon goes.
Put a pot of water with lid on the stove, keep it at a slow simmer or crank it up and blow the lid off.
Programmable style thermostats are best for saving energy in my opinion. I dont go for the wifi self learning thermostats, to me, just snake oil marketing for huge profits.
Set and forget a programmable thermostat, learn to live with it, night time schedule and a day time schedule, it cant be any more simple then that vs a wifi thermostat where everyone in the house will have their hands on it, turning it up and down as they see fit, doesnt make sense IF you simply want to save energy. If energy savings is not a concern, then wifi is great but dont buy one and think its best for saving energy, that is just googles marketing getting inside your head.
Wifi does make sense for unoccupied and vacation homes and some others, but not the vast majority running into the home improvement stores buying them. Its such a a scam to sell new high profit thermostats, use the excuse that you will save money better then a plain old programable because marketing put that in peoples head. (and sure I will be slammed by those that have them)